Have you seen it? Iconic 9/11 flag's whereabouts still a mystery

By Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN

Updated 9:48 AM ET, Fri September 6, 2013

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Photos:Iconic image of 9/11 flag raising

Firefighters George Johnson, Dan McWilliams and Billy Eisengrein raise a flag at ground zero in New York after the terror attacks on September 11, 2001. The scene was immortalized by photographer Thomas E. Franklin. The image has been widely reproduced in the decade since it was first published. View 25 of history's most iconic photographs.

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Photos:Iconic image of 9/11 flag raising

The now-famous photograph was never featured on the front page of The Record, the newspaper Franklin works for in Bergen County, New Jersey. The photo appeared on page 32 on September 12, 2001.

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Photos:Iconic image of 9/11 flag raising

On September 13, 2001, the front page of Britain's "The Sun" draws the comparison between the image at the World Trade Center and Joe Rosenthal's 1945 photograph of U.S. troops raising a flag in Iwo Jima during World War II.

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Photos:Iconic image of 9/11 flag raising

Newsweek features Franklin's photo on its cover on September 24, 2001.

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Photos:Iconic image of 9/11 flag raising

Firemen re-create the flag raising during the 2001 World Series in Phoenix, Arizona, on October 27, 2001.

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Photos:Iconic image of 9/11 flag raising

A firetruck that features a mural depicting a firefighter raising the flag is unveiled to the public in Clintonville, Wisconsin, on January 20, 2002. The truck was donated to the New York Fire Department.

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Photos:Iconic image of 9/11 flag raising

The scene captured by Franklin also made its way onto a commemorative coin.

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Photos:Iconic image of 9/11 flag raising

Artist Jim Conrad designed a sculptured bronze version of the flag raising in honor of the Rev. Mychal Judge, a New York Fire Department chaplain who lost his life while administering last rites on September 11, 2001. Conrad is seen polishing the sculpture in 2002 at his home in Lakewood, Colorado.

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Photos:Iconic image of 9/11 flag raising

President George W. Bush unveils a "Heroes of 2001" stamp issued by the Postal Service on March 11, 2002, to raise funds to assist the families of emergency relief workers killed or permanently disabled as a result of the World Trade Center attacks. He is joined at the White House by the firefighters who are featured in the image, from left, Eisengrein, Johnson and McWilliams.

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Photos:Iconic image of 9/11 flag raising

The stamp is displayed at a ceremony outside of the Brooklyn Borough Hall in New York on July 2, 2002. From left, Brooklyn Postmaster Joseph Lubrano, Borough President Marty Markowitz and Harold Meyers of the New York City Fire Department were in attendance.

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Photos:Iconic image of 9/11 flag raising

NASCAR driver Jamie McMurray decorated the hood of his car with a replica of the "Heroes of 2001" stamp. A crew member helps ready the car at the Daytona International Speedway in 2002.

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Photos:Iconic image of 9/11 flag raising

The image can also be found on T-shirts, like this one worn by Venita Bradford at a memorial service in Energy, Illinois, on September 11, 2002.

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Photos:Iconic image of 9/11 flag raising

A version of the photograph appears on a commemorative knife.

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A snow globe owned by collector Josef Kardinal depicts the flag raising at ground zero. He is seen in 2006 at his home in Nuremberg, Germany.

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Photos:Iconic image of 9/11 flag raising

A 40-foot-tall bronze monument named "To Lift a Nation" depicts the famous scene. Pictured at a warehouse in 2007, the sculpture is now part of the permanent collection at the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Park in Emmitsburg, Maryland.

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A woman holds a commemorative plate at her home in San Salvador, El Salvador, on September 7, 2011.

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The iconic image has also been turned into a pair of earrings.

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Wax figures of the firefighters are displayed during the "HOPE: Humanity And Heroism" exhibition at Madame Tussauds in Washington on May 10, 2013.

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Photos:Iconic image of 9/11 flag raising

Photographer Thomas E. Franklin sits at his work station in Hackensack, New Jersey, in 2002.

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Story highlights

The flag that became the subject of an iconic 9/11 photo went missing after it was hoisted

Possible sighting have come in Las Vegas, Houston, West Point and Oskaloosa, Iowa

Co-director says, "It's more than looking for a flag. It about looking for that feeling"

It doesn't appear tracking down this piece of 9/11 history will be easy.

Tips have been rolling in, spurred by the CNN Films' production, "The Flag," a documentary about the flag that three New York firefighters hoisted above the World Trade Center rubble in the aftermath of the attack.

This particular version of Old Glory was 3 feet by 5 feet. Photos and video from the site suggest it went missing fewer than six hours after a photographer with a Bergen, New Jersey, newspaper captured the firefighters' deed in a photo that would become one of the most -- if not the most -- iconic images from tragedy.

Co-director Michael Tucker said he expects that as news of the film infiltrates the tight-knit communities of New York's firefighters, police officers, port authority workers and paramedics, more viable leads will come.

"Once more people from that world see it, I think we're going to start learning a lot more," he said, adding that he and co-director Petra Epperlein examined more than 5,000 photos and viewed four days of television coverage from each of the networks during the documentary's production.

Of course, there was the obligatory yahoo claiming aliens took it -- but there were more sober sightings as well.

A Florida woman said she saw it in the New York State Museum in Albany, while another viewer wondered whether a flag he'd seen at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point was the banner in question.

Other potential sightings came at Missouri's Fort Leonard Wood; NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston; the Escondido, California, Elks Lodge; and the hair and makeup department of the New York New York Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

In one seemingly angry e-mail received before the documentary aired, a man using the name of a retired New York police lieutenant slammed the firefighters. He accused them of stealing the flag (the documentary explains how it was taken from a yacht docked near the trade center) and claimed the iconic photo was staged and that the firefighters absconded with the flag after the picture was taken.

"There had already been a few flags hoisted down at the site including the first flag to be hoisted by 2 officers from the NYPD," the tipster wrote. "Since the NYPD raised their flag in the immediate aftermath of the attack, there is still a ton of smoke and soot in the air, there are numerous rescue workers on scene ... several of whom are saluting. This is a much more original, natural, unrehearsed shot than the photo op taken much later."

The most credible tip, Tucker said, came from a man who said a lighting company in Oskaloosa, Iowa, that assisted with the 9/11 cleanup effort was in possession of the flag. But that flag turned out to be larger than the 9/11 flag, Tucker said.

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Tucker's hunch is that the flag's disappearance involved nothing nefarious.

"Someone most likely saw it there and thought that's a dirty, tattered flag and said, 'I'm going to save that,' " he said. "It's going to be someone who either went there to volunteer with some specific skill or was a first responder.

"If anything, I think someone's intentions were very good."

While some tips are more feasible than others, Tucker says, "They're all legitimate because people have connections to these objects, to these symbols."

And perhaps more important than finding the flag is providing this outlet for catharsis, Tucker said.

Many people have forgotten how they felt the day the towers came down.

With a war-weary nation now considering military action in Syria, Tucker believes discussing and searching for the 9/11 flag gives people an opportunity to revisit their emotions and "immerse themselves in the story of that day."

"It was the worst of days that somehow brought out the best in many Americans," he said. "It's more than looking for a flag. It's about looking for that feeling."